A week may be a short time in politics, but in prediction markets it can feel like an eternity. Just days after our inaugural Prediction Pulse, the world of Kalshi and Polymarket has managed to stir up more controversy, sharpening the debate over how far these platforms should go in turning current events into commodities.
Last week, we noted Polymarket’s penchant for seizing viral moments and repackaging them as trading opportunities – sometimes with little regard for taste or timing. Since then, the trend has only deepened, and Kalshi appears to have dipped its toes into similar waters. The result is a growing unease about whether these markets are clarifying public sentiment or exploiting it.
For now, however, all eyes are fixed on a geopolitical stage rather than a trading floor. The meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has become the latest flashpoint. Both Kalshi and Polymarket are busy framing the high-stakes diplomacy in terms of probabilities and payouts (like we saw with Iran), eager to chart the trajectory of a relationship that could shape global affairs for years.
The question is whether traders are capturing the pulse of geopolitics, or simply profiting from its heartbeat.
What’s on this week’s prediction markets
Kalshi
Kalshi’s traders have been busy this week, and nothing has drawn more attention than the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska. The hottest bet on the platform put a near-certain 98% chance on the two leaders shaking hands before Saturday (August 16). A small gesture, perhaps, but one that prediction markets decided to magnify into a headline event.
Then came the guessing game over who would join Trump on the trip. Early in the week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio looked like a lock, trading at 92%. By midweek, though, the hype had shifted. His odds tumbled, Vice President JD Vance climbed, and Trump’s long-time golfing partner and ‘Putin whisperer,’ Steve Witkoff, suddenly looked like the insider’s pick.
By Friday, the market had turned again, this time favoring Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at 75%, thanks to chatter about hard-nosed negotiations over Ukraine.
Of course, prediction markets love volatility, but reality tends to catch up with them. The final delegation is now confirmed: Rubio, Vance, Witkoff, Hegseth, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. For all the week’s drama, the bettors were not entirely wrong, just a little costly in how they got there.
It wasn’t just geopolitics that kept the markets guessing this week. Kalshi also lit up with wagers over who will succeed Jerome Powell once his term as Fed chair expires next year. The latest name to surge into the conversation was David Zervos, Jefferies’ chief market strategist.
On Wednesday, his odds jumped to 15% after reports surfaced that President Trump is weighing a wide field of 11 contenders. The list now includes Zervos, former Fed Governor Larry Lindsey, and Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s chief investment officer for global fixed income. For a brief stretch, Zervos even edged out Kevin Warsh, the one-time favorite, with traders giving him a 17% chance versus Warsh’s 14%.
The frontrunner, though, remains Fed Governor Chris Waller, holding steady at 30%. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett sits in second place at 21%. Both Hassett and Warsh saw their odds leap after Trump praised “the Kevins” during a CNBC interview last week, calling them “very good.”
If the Trump-Putin handshake and Fed chair sweepstakes kept Kalshi busy, Wednesday brought a sharper controversy. Reports surfaced that the platform briefly listed a market on whether baseball star Shohei Ohtani would be arrested. By the afternoon or evening, the market vanished from the site.
The timing suggested a knee-jerk reaction to headlines about Ohtani and his agent being sued over a real estate deal in Hawaii. The catch, of course, is that the case is civil, not criminal. That made the “arrest” framing both misleading and inflammatory. The URL that once hosted the market no longer works, but Kalshi watchers quickly flagged its existence.
Even another wager, on whether the Hawaii Circuit Court would side with Ohtani and his agent in the lawsuit, appears to have been taken down. Both contracts fell under Kalshi’s “self-certified” categories, in this case “CASEWIN” and “ARREST,” which allow for rapid posting when a news story breaks.
Kalshi has tiptoed around controversial listings before. It stayed away from the more outrageous fare Polymarket thrives on, like bets about sex toys being thrown at WNBA games, but it did take heat earlier this year for posting a market on the fate of the man accused of murdering UnitedHealth’s CEO. The Ohtani episode suggests that, despite the guardrails, Kalshi is still feeling out the boundaries of taste and responsibility in real time.
Polymarket
Polymarket, never one to miss a chance at over-analysis, has sliced the Trump-Putin summit into bite-sized wagers. Will they shake hands? Will they trade insults? How long might the handshake linger? It is less a diplomatic summit than a Vegas prop bet.
NEW POLYMARKET: What will Trump say during his conference with Putin tomorrow?
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) August 14, 2025
As of Friday, traders were nearly certain, 95%, that the hands would clasp. The real action came in the side markets. Bettors gave a 71$ chance that Trump would talk of a ceasefire, and just as much that he would dangle new sanctions. Even Joe Biden, who is nowhere near Alaska, somehow ended up as a possible cameo in the betting slips.
BREAKING: "No bag policy" has been implemented for tonight's WNBA game in an attempt to crack down on dildo throwers.
— Polymarket Sports (@PolymarketSport) August 6, 2025
Polymarket is not just running markets these days, it is also chasing virality on social media. Twice in the past week, its X/Twitter accounts have posted things that simply were not true. The most notorious was a post from its sports account declaring:
“BREAKING: ‘No bag policy’ has been implemented for tonight’s WNBA game in an attempt to crack down on dildo throwers.”
The tweet racked up more than 43 million views, according to X’s metrics, but there was one problem: the policy does not exist. No news outlet reported it, no league announcement backed it up, and when Yahoo Sports and The Sporting News looked into the matter, they published pieces debunking the claim outright. A reporter from Front Office Sports even confirmed with the Golden State Valkyries that no change in bag policy had been made for that night’s game.
I saw some posts on here about the WNBA changing its bag policy for tonight’s game in Golden State.
The Valkyries tell me that’s not true, they haven’t changed the bag policy for the game.
— Margaret Fleming (@mgfleming12) August 6, 2025
The episode is part of Polymarket’s ongoing fixation with the bizarre trend of dildos being thrown onto WNBA courts, a spectacle it has turned into a betting line. Why a company that touts itself as a “truth machine” is so determined to turn fake bag bans and flying sex toys into revenue streams is anyone’s guess.
Featured image: Canva / Grok
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